Comments on: Cornish

By: Lihtox

Lihtox — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:07 +0000

@David: hence the saying “a pint’s a pound the whole world ’round”.

By: David

David — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:18:55 +0000

This is probably late enough to not be seen, but for the sake of posterity… Regarding the equivalence of an ounce (volume) and an ounce (weight), the origin of ounce is from ‘uncia’, or ‘twelfth part’ in the Roman system, so a fluid ounce was 1/12 of a pint, and a weight ounce was 1/12 of a pound. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/435401/ounce

Somewhere along the way, 1/12 became 1/16, so an ounce is either 1/16 of a pound or 1/16 of a pint. Except for troy ounces, where it is still 1/12, or the British imperial system which made the fluid ounce 1/20 of a pint.

An ounce of water weighs 29.57g at standard conditions, an ounce (weight) is 28.375g, so an ounce of water weighs 1.042 ounces. So it comes close enough for all practical cooking purposes, but that wasn’t necessarily the intent.

By: Sili

Sili — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:42:59 +0000

I thought it was a reference to Sellafield, but that’s Cumbria, not Cornwall, so I guess I’m with the CIDUs.

By: Mark in Boston

Mark in Boston — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:32:18 +0000

@Mitch4: “sez” for “says” is called “eye dialect”. But just because there’s a word for it doesn’t mean there’s a point to it. Are we supposed to think, “Ha ha! That Moon Mullens is so uneducated he pronounces ’says’ just like … a Harvard graduate or anyone else pronounces it.”?

By: fh

fh — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:12:48 +0000

I’m sure it’s supposed to be referring to the smallness of Cornish game hens, but referring to “lbs” was not a mistake. That is the joke. Carlos is trying to deceive the customer — as if a 3-lb. Cornish lobster would be smaller than a 3-lb. Maine lobster. The deception won’t succeed, of course, as Tina (the waitress) recognizes in the last panel.

By: Mitch4

Mitch4 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:25:03 +0000

Though I ought to acknowledge there has always been something problematic about how to take the speling in dialogue balloons.

I think it was when reading Moon Mullins when I was a kid that I puzzled over the spelling “sez” for “says”. For everyone I knew at that time, and *almost* everyone I’ve met or heard since, those are pronounced exactlly the same. So what was “sez” indicating? (1) That if the character were called upon to wriite out a note, “sez” is the spelling he would probably cme up with. (2) It’s meant to call attention that the character invariably says “says” even where official grammar might call for “say” — e.g. “And then I says to her …”. (3) The cartoonist belongs to one of the small langauage communities where “says” is pronounced /sejz/ (that is, say plus z), and the ’sez’ pronunciation is for him a class dialect marker.

By: Mitch4

Mitch4 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:13:28 +0000

Lihtox: Afraid I have to disagree. Your point might hold if we saw, say, a menu posted on the wall, with “lbs.” occurring in a written context. But the customer in this cartoon is speaking, and not spelling. So the choice of how to write it in the balloon is the cartoonist’s, and bears responsibiity to conveying the speaker’s intention — which by this argument must be “pounds as weight”.

By: Lihtox

Lihtox — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:48:47 +0000

@Powers: I find that the funniest cartoons often take a little work to decipher: you read it, you have to think for a moment, and then it all clicks and the joke is even funnier because you had to do some work to get it. Thus obfuscation is a reasonable tool for a cartoonist to use. I wouldn’t say that this cartoon is particularly funny, but using “lbs” for “pounds” is a reasonable thing to do.

Alternatively, suppose a Brit had read the cartoon: the Brit would have seen “3 pound lobster”, thought immediately of price, and then not understood what the joke was about. Writing “3 lb” makes it clear that the customer is talking about weight.

Again, not particularly funny, not necessarily executed well, but rational.

By: Powers

Powers — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:22:43 +0000

Lihtox: “So what if the cartoonist’s balloon uses the ‘lb’ abbreviation; it’s still pronounced pounds.”

So, the cartoonist works in a visual medium and must consider the way his text looks when executing a joke.

By: Mitch4

Mitch4 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:17:19 +0000

If only it had been from Turkey, then it could have been […]

And if only it had been a turkey, then there would have been more than enough to please everybody.